


The Jacket

by JMount74



Series: Fluffember 2020 [4]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Car Accidents, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27383932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMount74/pseuds/JMount74
Summary: The jacket - one of her most treasured possessions.
Series: Fluffember 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997284
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	The Jacket

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gumnut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gumnut/gifts).



> Fluffember Prompt 4

It was a simple brown leather, wool-lined bomber jacket. With three patches. The USAF wings patch, her squadron patch and a MED patch signifying her medic role.

She loved the jacket. It was one of her earliest pieces of uniform – a tradition carried on from WWI when the jackets were vital to keep airmen warm – and the three patches were a lasting reminder of her service.

Ruth wore it everywhere. Whatever the weather. It was what she was wearing the day she returned home and fell in love*. She wore it working around the farm. She’d even used it as an extra layer that time Grant caught a fever and they just couldn’t get him warm enough.

It had come as no surprise the day she found it missing.

Jeff had been casting longing glances at her jacket since he had been eight years old and had declared that USAF was the quickest way to NASA, and he might have to seriously think of this as an alternative career route. It had been too big for him then.

Now, at twelve, the jacket was still too long, but Jeff was growing, and the work he did around the farm had given the lad muscles a full-grown man would be jealous of. Sure enough, he was wearing it when he arrived home. Ruth was secretly amused by his appropriation of her jacket; but did not let that show as she lectured him on the etiquette of asking before taking and the importance of taking care of it.

Jeff listened carefully to his Mom. He loved the jacket. He loved the history the jacket provided, and he promised faithfully to care for it. Jeff was true to his word, keeping it clean and using the right leather food on it so it did not dry out and crack.

He managed to keep wearing the jacket right up until he left for college at 17 on a scholarship. Ruth had offered him to keep the jacket, but Jeff refused. He couldn’t guarantee that it would be safe, and his mom loved him just that little bit more for the regard he showed for her and her precious jacket.

Ruth carried on wearing it.  
She was wearing it the day her world fell apart. The day her wonderful husband and beautiful daughter-in-law were taken from them.  
She needed the warmth and familiarity of the jacket that day, and almost every day after.

She wore the jacket the day she moved out of her farm to move into her son’s farmhouse and take care of her grandsons. Her poor grandsons had lost both their Grandfather, their mother and their father in one fail swoop. Jeff had withdrawn from them all, lost himself in his work as he tried to come to terms with his loss and completely withdrawing from his boys, leaving a 13-year-old Scott to deal with, well, everything. God alone knew how he had coped for the year and a half it had taken her to come to her senses and for Jeff to find out how much Scott was struggling+.

Now, standing on the threshold of the next chapter of her life, Sally drew her coat around her. Mentally reminding herself of her given name – only Grant had ever called her Ruth, her middle and preferred name – she entered, and all hell broke loose as her grandsons realised she had arrived.

Scott was already, at nearly 15, too tall for the jacket; but she could see his covetousness. He had declared he would be a USAF pilot at the tender age of five. He’d tried on the jacket, but his arms were too long, even if he was too skinny.

So when she came downstairs to go shopping while the boys were doing their Saturday stuff and found her jacket missing, she was a bit confused. None of the other boys had shown an interest in her now battered but still warm jacket. It wouldn’t be John – he was almost as tall as Scott and it wouldn’t fit John any better. No way it would fit either Gordon or Alan, but she would be surprised if twelve-year-old Virgil had taken it. Virgil had made it quite clear that he was a pacifist – it was the only thing that he and Scott argued over. Shrugging her shoulders and leaving for shopping, she knew that whoever had borrowed it would look after it and return it.

Virgil had gone out for the day, taking his bike and his lunch. He had snaffled his Grandmother’s jacket, not that he could explain it. His Mom had been gone for almost two years, and today would have been the anniversary of his first concert. He was feeling particularly down and needed some time on his own. Scott had been upset to be pushed aside. Virgil had seen the jacket on the way out and had grabbed it on a whim. 

He needed a bit of comfort.

By the time Virgil had finished his lunch he was feeling much better, the jacket having weaved its’ magic. He began the long ride home, having ridden hard and fast this morning. The jacket made it feel like his grandmother was hugging him all the time, and he had felt her calmness steal over him as his morning ride carried on. 

It was half-way home that disaster struck. By this time Virgil had started composing a song for his grandmother in his head. Humming away, he wasn’t paying as much attention as he maybe should have been. He didn’t hear the car.

One minute he was merrily cycling down the road. The next he was on the floor, pain exploding through his right leg and side. There was a strange woman shouting at him, but he couldn’t really hear what was going on. He closed his eyes.

The next time Virgil opened his eyes he immediately screwed them up again. It was too bright. There was a chuckle. Virgil opened his eyes again, a slit only this time, to see the bright blue eyes of his oldest brother staring back at him. He tried a smile but thought that it probably looked more like a grimace. He closed his eyes again.

‘Hey, Virge.’  
Grunt  
‘Open those big brown eyes for me.’  
Grunt.  
‘Come on, Virgil.’  
Sigh. He opened his eyes again. ‘Wha’ happ’n?’ he managed to ask. He was a little afraid to know, but the gentle smile Scott gave him helped calm his nerves.

‘You had an accident. What do you remember?’  
‘Humming. Jacket. Car. Shouting?’  
‘Sounds about right. The lady was very nice, found your phone after calling for the ambulance and called me.’  
‘Grandma?’  
‘On her way. She went to pick the others up first.’  
‘Dad?’ 

Scott inwardly cringed at the slightly hopeful but fearful tone in his brother’s voice, not failing to notice that Dad now came after Grandma. ‘Dad’s coming too. He’s got a bit of travelling to get here, but he’ll be here.’ In truth their dad had absolutely panicked when Scott had told him about the accident. After everything that had happened to Scott over the last eighteen months Jeff had been that much more reluctant to travel out of the state for his business, but the reality was that this was occasionally unavoidable. As it had been this weekend. But he now had his own plane and would be here by early evening as opposed to tomorrow night earliest without it.

‘Damage?’ Virgil asked, his voice getting stronger as his brain kicked in more. He hadn’t looked at himself at all, keeping his eyes on Scott. 

‘Broken leg and arm, lots of scrapes and bruises,’ his big brother replied. ‘Thank goodness a) you were wearing a helmet and b) she saw you early enough to be slowing down when she hit you.’

A thought hit Virgil, hit Virgil hard. ‘Grandma’s jacket?’ he whispered, fearful of the answer. Scott sighed. ‘I’m afraid that the jacket didn’t make it. They had to cut up the sleeve to release your arm, and there were some scrapes.’ 

Suddenly Scott was on the bed, pulling Virgil into a hug as the twelve-year-old dissolved into tears. He knew how much that jacket meant to his grandma and he had taken it without permission. Scott knew what his brother was thinking, knew how emotional he was when medicated, and he simply held on tight.

Neither heard the door open, nor did they acknowledge the entrance of their Grandma and brothers, not until Virgil had pulled himself together and wiped his eyes, his brother hiding him from the view of his younger brothers. When they eventually did pull away, Scott grabbed the bag under his chair and gathered his remaining brothers, taking them, protesting as they were, to get a drink so Virgil could talk to their Grandma.

Once Scott had taken the others out, Sally turned to Virgil. She knew that she shouldn’t – and didn’t – have favourites, but she had a soft spot for Virgil. Out of all the brothers he reminded her both of his mother and her husband. She placed a hand on his arm and was rewarded with more tears.

‘Virgil, honey, you’re ok, love. You’re ok,’ she murmured, hoping to help him calm down. ‘I’m sorry, Grandma, I’m sorry.’ He kept saying this over and over. Sally was beginning to think he wasn’t going to calm down, but then he took in a deep, shaky breath.

‘What are you sorry for, sweetie?’ she asked, a small suspicion already formed in her mind. She knew her grandson very well. Very well, even if she had been absent for over a year. ‘I’m sorry, Grandma. I – I took your jacket and now it’s ruined.’ Fresh tears fell.

Sally sighed. Here he was lying in a hospital bed, a broken arm and leg, multiple contusions and abrasions; and yet he was more worried about her jacket! How typically Tracy. They really did start young, and Virgil was no different.

‘Darling, it’s just a jacket. You are far more important, and I’ve already spoken to the doc and they said the jacket meant that your upper body wasn’t as damaged as you could have been. It was quite a knock you took, and you travelled a little distance after the car hit you. I’m far happier that you are relatively in one piece than worried about the jacket.’

Virgil hiccupped as he took on board what his grandma said. He was still devastated by the destruction of her precious jacket, but he allowed her concern for him to relax him. He soon drifted off to sleep.

He was out of action for six weeks. Thank goodness for bone regeneration – even 10 years earlier he would have been out for at least two months plus. Even then Virgil needed to have physio to build up his leg and arm muscles again. In total it was two months before Virgil was back to normal.

Three months after the whole incident there was a knock at Sally’s bedroom door. She frowned. The boys should all have been in bed or studying. Opening the door, she was surprised to see Scott and Virgil there with a parcel. Holding the door open and letting them in, Sally wondered what was going on. It was very rare the boys interrupted her here, so this must be important.

Scott sat on the floor as Virgil stood next to him. He watched as their Grandma sat on the bed and Virgil offered her the parcel, trying hard to hide the grin. Virgil pulled up a piece of the floor next to him as Sally opened the parcel.

She gasped. Inside the parcel was her jacket. The arm looked like nothing had happened to it. Only by comparing it with the left arm could she see that actually the seam was in the wrong place. Sally looked at her grandsons and saw them both grinning their heads off.

‘How?’ was all she managed to say.

‘Scott rescued it and took it to a tailor’s.’ Virgil said, glancing at his big brother. When Scott had presented the jacket back to Virgil he had been speechless. He hadn’t forgotten the jacket; and had been racking his brain thinking how he could make it up to his Grandma. His big brother and he had the reputation be being mind-readers, but even he had been surprised by Scott’s gift. Scott had kept it until Virgil was up and running fully and could present it to their Grandmother himself.  
Sally looked at her grandchildren. They never ceased to amaze her with their thoughtfulness and care for family. She held her arms open and they both came over to her, neither too old for the hug of appreciation. Hugging them tightly, Sally thanked them both.

The jacket took pride of place once more on the coat hooks by the back door. Everyone knew how important the jacket was. No-one ever took it again without permission.

It came to the island with them.

She soon had a collection of pictures with each grandson wearing her jacket now, alongside her son, her husband and herself in the jacket.

When Virgil and Kayo’s son was born, her first great-grandson, they presented her a framed picture of the baby curled up in her jacket. Four generations now she had pictures of in her jacket.

Her most treasured possession was not the jacket, but her family and the fact that they treasured its' importance so much.

**Author's Note:**

> Vague references made to:  
> Fire – Tracy Style (Ruth & Grant)  
> A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Scott)


End file.
